Hello all, figured I would start a thread on my coupe that I picked up over the weekend. I have been dreaming about one of these cars since high school and finally the dream has come true. She is defiantly a project at this stage, but that what I was looking to get. Here are some pics: When I first rolled her in the shop: After I left the shop the next evening: Chopped another 2" out of the top, lowered the front a bit, started roof filler panel: You can see I have my work cut out for me. The chop and a lot of the panels on the car are pretty schetchy as you can see in the pics, full of bondo. I am defiantly going to get that all under control and re-do a lot of the sheetmetal work on the car. One other thing that I will be taking care of asap is whoever worked on it in the past shaved the drip rails, cant stand it so I will be addressing that as well. As for the chassis and drivetrain, I am going to have it all apart to pinch the frame and get it matching the body, then some new motor mounts(ditching the modern looking ones on it) and re-doing all the cross member work and rear suspension. The drivetrain in it now is a 283sbc backed by a th350, not real sure what ill be doing with the motor, but I have a bunch of old speed parts for small blocks and and few 327's laying around so hard telling what ill do with that. As for the tranny I am going to ditch that for a old muncie 4speed. Im still unsure of the steering situation I need to do some homework, hit the net for ideas, I kno vaguely how I want it done, just a matter of tracking down parts. I think thats about all for now, Im super stoked about this car, been a long time since ive been excited to work on a build so its got a fire going under my ass to get it done. I hope to have it on the road by spring time so ill be spending lots of evenings and weekends in the shop! I look foward to being able to contribute to the site and hear you guys input on things! Thanks for looking! -Justin
Great project! Looks like I need to subsribe to yet another build thread. Looking forward to the progress!
Stance and chop look spot on. Love a little bigger tire up front like you have. That thing is way way further along then most. Good thinking switching out that auto for a Muncie.
Thanks guys! I loved the car from the beginning, it took me a couple hours to even commit to chopping it more, but im really glad I did. Im not changing a thing now stance wise, Ive always been into real low cars, but this car flows to well to z the frame or anything like that, if it wasnt a 32 frame it might be a different story. Funny how things work, I sat on my last car and a sporty I had for it seems like forever, then within in 3 days they are both gone! I got a surprise call lastnight from a friend and we struck a deal so now I have some cash to put into the A, wahoo! Looks like shell be moving along faster than expected! Ill keep the pics and updates coming for you guys as it rolls along! -Justin
Thanks Pasi!! I didnt get to work on the car much this weekend with all the family stuff going on, but i did manage to sneek down for a little bit: Here is what I started with: As you can see it is quite rough, I did a little bit of hammering around on it, but it was in bad shape, the one seem was super thin and there was about 1/2" of bondo over all of this. I decided to just make a patch panel where the seam was, would be much easier than trying to re-work their cob job. Here are some pics of the progress, I still have a lot of hammering and dollying and some pin holes to fill but you get the idea, its turning out much better in my opinion. I also had a chance while I was at home and dug through some parts. I ended up finding some comp roller rockers I forgot I had, new solid lifters, all new gaskets, the cam I will be using in the motor, and a few other odds and ends for the motor build. I will probably start on that soon. Im thinking about taking it home so I can make progress on that while my daughter is in bed at night, That will give me something to do and also be productive on the car Thanks for looking -Justin
Thank you, and Absolutely! lol that is one thing that drives me crazy on this car. I think it takes a lot away from the flow of the car not having them on there. They did a very bad attempt at shaving the body line/drip rail area. I will be rebuilding all this and putting drip rails back on. -Justin
Really, Ill have to do some diggging. That would make my life a bit easier! Thanks for the heads up! -Justin
Hello all, Well like most things when owning a business, this thing got set to the side for quite a while unfortunately. Luckily I have been able to get back on her a bit and I got the frame rails pinched to match the body and this evening I got a good start on the front suspension/frame. Here are some pictures: Passenger side: Steps on how I did this on the other side: Make a few cuts and bends: Use the triangle cut out of the bottom for a filler piece on the top where cut out: Then it got a bit foggy when my angle grinder jumped up and took a chunk out of my face so I kind of slacked on pics: But you get the idea, not trying to get in the beautiful welds thread with these, just good penetration ect since they were all getting ground down. Here is where it sets as of now, the wheels are a bit farther forward than they are going to be in this pic and the ass end is sitting low. It will have the body just above the body line when done. Oh and I used the frame horns that I cut off the frame for this crossmember for those who could not tell. Cut them straightened them and cleaned them up a bit and this is what came out. I am going to add some bracing in a lot of places before boxing the frame back up. Pics will come as progress is made. Thanks for looking! Any suggestions welcome, this is still my first hot rod so I like to hear what people have to say! -Justin
Another update on my coupe, been able to spend a bit of time on her this last month or so. I got some more done with the front suspension and the motor sitting in place ready for mounts this weekend. The radius rods in this pic are just mocked in place, they will not be hanging below the frame when its all said and done. I wanted to get the motor in and weight on the front-end before I decided where the final mount location up in the frame is to give the spindles the right angle. How she sits now, the rear end will sit anther 2" or so higher than in these pics, I just have the frame sitting on the axe until I can make the rear suspension and still have it able to roll around the shop. Suggestions and comments welcome! Thanks Justin
Thank you, yea ive had an idea of how I wanted to do it for a while, then I seen his car and it helped bring my planning together. His car defiantly had some inspiration on the front suspension. Dude does amazing work! -Justin
Thank you guys! I didnt realize how much my bottle jacks must have bleed off from the night before to when I took the pics, the motor is way off in the pics lol -Justin
I recognise that long rigid front end from the JJ Wow mate coupe looks great, my preference has always been late A's over 32s. Care to post some pics of the AD trucks in the background of the early pics.
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